How to Contribute

NOTE: As other avenues become available, this page will be revised accordingly

Ubuntu community is a versatile and resourceful one that spans the whole world. Our Dear country, Nigeria, is no exception. The unique limitations we experience notwithstanding, we have been able to cultivate a thriving community on Nairaland and other places.

The community, thought thriving, is really disjointed and not very organized. Several People who consider themselves as part of the Ubuntu community in Nigeria do not even know that there are other avenues which are available for Ubuntu / FOSS (free and open source) users in Nigeria to Utilize.

This page is to serve as an resource for all Ubuntu/ Linux users all over Nigeria on where the community resides and how they can contribute / participate fully in the budding Ubuntu/ GNU-Linux community in Nigeria.

That being said, I will only list all the resources that I know of at the moment. Other Editors of this blog can improve on this also. If you are not an editor, and you know of a resource that is not listed below, please contact us here

So, here goes

The first i will list is this blog. In case you are wondering what the URL is, look up at your address bar 🙂

There is a long standing and thriving thread about Ubuntu on Nairaland (where this blog grew out from) and it can be found here

A spanking new Facebook group has been created by yours truly for Ubuntu Nigeria and it can be found here. please join and spread the word

Twitter and Identi.ca accounts have also been created for Ubuntu nigeria and they can be found here and here. please follow/subscribe

A gmail account for the more private conversations with the core members of Ubuntu Nigeria is also available. The email is as given above. NOTE: If you consider yourself a hardcore Ubuntu user in nigeria and want to have access to the email account, please send a message to that email account.

There is also a mailing list which i only just recently found out about. It is here

finally, there is an irc channel on irc.freenode.net (#nglug) where u can always come in and say hi (if you find anyone online).

Now for the Contribution part. All of the links above (and the others that i dont know about / have not been created yet) constitute the Ubuntu userland in Nigeria. I am personally responsible for the Facebook, Twitter and Identica accounts (cos i created them) as well as this blog. I’m sure you will agree with me that its quite a task. I don’t want to / cannot do it alone. so please, if you want to contribute by

updating the twitter / identi.ca pages once in a while

Adding blog posts to improve the knowledge base of Ubuntu users in Nigeria on this blog, e.t.c

You can send an email to ubuntunigeria at gmail dot com and something will be done about that.

Even if you are not a hardcore user and so cannot write blog posts or you are not into online social networks, you can still contribute by spreading the word about this blog and Ubuntu in general. Your Input is highly welcome.

Hello,
I am an ubuntu user. I have been using ubuntu for close to 5 years now. Now i have even a few times attended the ubuntu Ireland meetup via irc. i for once have come across the #nglug channel bt this was a private channel b/w a few groups of developers. Now i have even send my membership to the Ubuntu nigeria wiki page. So i do follow ubuntu activities as best as i can. An i can say that on my laptop i run windows on a VM for office purposes. Apart from that am a pure linux guy.My flavor is Ubuntu like u would have notices.

I do have a question after all. This site, is just a personal effort,well i see it is. but have u consulted with the larger ubuntu community. cos if u have, then there wld be no need to be creating this site. as there is already an existings wiki page for ubuntu for nigeria. Why dont we work on that. atleast its official and recognised by the official ubuntu community

Thanks for your interest. This site isn’t just a personal effort. It is a collaboration by a group of Ubuntu users in Nigeria. It is however not officially recognized by Ubuntu (At least not to my knowledge). I am aware of the wiki page for Nigeria on Ubuntu wiki but i think that has a different goal than this site. Or at least, there are differences. if you read through the post, you will notice that i mentioned the mailing list which can be found on that wiki page. So while the wiki serves as a form of census for Ubuntu users in Nigeria, this blog serves more of an informative purpose for new users and experienced ones alike. I will have to discuss this more with others though. thanks for your interest. I think in the light of issues, a more official irc channel should be created. that will also be looked into. once again, thanks n i hope we will see more of u on this blog. If you feel u can contribute to making it better, please reach us from one of the avenues listed above.

hmnn well, i believe we should have a nearer-to-home kinda thing where newbies can relate freely with fellow nigerian users with first-hand knowledge of what its like for a nigerian user.

i remember the first times i had to go to the official ubuntu forums, it was confusing and those pple there wer not on my wavelength. the thread on Nairaland was the saving grace so im with this idea 100%. the official one for an international face sure but i think this should still stand

I will like to give kudos to you guys for taking it upon yourselves to start and drive this effort. I’ve been on nairaland for a long time but didn’t stumble upon the Ubuntu thread until today. Unfortunately, I couldn’t participate in the discussion on nairaland because my posting privilege was revoked for reasons best known to the moderator(s).

Having read some of the discussions and comments, I will like to put forward some suggestions that could help in furthering the cause. Linux generally is not a difficult operating system platform to learn. However, change is something everyone is initially resistant to. I observed that a lot of the folks who complain about Linux will readily adopt Mac OS, which incidentally is a Unix variant as well. This makes me believe that the issue is not of complexity but of brand preference. By that I mean, “what is cool”. Most people don’t see Linux as cool. Our selling point therefore should be to make it appear “cool”.

The strategy I’m proposing is for us to identify the cool applications and functionality that Linux provides in every thriving profession in Nigeria and use it for demonstration. For instance, music and movie production is thriving and growing business in Nigeria. There are tons of free open source software in that space that are far better than the commercial proprietary ones most of the studios are currently using. A demonstration of Ubuntu Studio will surely convince most of the skeptics. To achieve this end, we would need someone who knows the lingo of that space to produce the demonstration. In the area of movie rendering, one could build a render farm using a cluster of Linux machines and demonstrate how rendering time can be reduced without paying a steep price for expensive hardware. We could put up a Yearly or Quarterly Linux Exhibition at various locations throughout the country. The first one might be the hardest. I’m sure for subsequent ones, we would get sponsorship from various organizations and bodies.

i think its a very good idea but it’s gonna take alot to actually bring something like that to fruition. i will post this comment on the ubuntu thread on nairaland so that the discussion can continue there. feel free to stop by.

I recently tried to install the starcomms izap modem on my UBUNTU 10.10(Marvick Meerkat) but it wasn’t working.I’ll like to give a big thanks to the canonical team who produced this OS,i looked a several tutorials telling me to instal wvial,gppp,etc.Some tutorials also suggested i pull out the terminal and try to apt-get wvia and other software for network access.
Here’s what i did to get it working,i clicked network button on the task bar,you’ll recognise it because the icon looks like two screens or monitors,one in front of the other.On the drop down menu,i clicked conigure VPN and clicked forward.I clicked the mobile broad band tab,clicked add button.It’ll ask u to pick ur country pick nigeria,,=pick cdma evdo,and type in Starcomms when it asks for the connection name LEAVE all the default settings except for username type “yourStarcommsmodemnumber@starcomms.com” e.g 081xxxxxx@starcomms.com for password simply type the same number but without the “@starcomms.com” e.g 081xxxxxx only click apply and you’re done.If it doesnt connect right away you could unplug the modem and replug it.Click the network button and click connect.Thats all.Hope this was helpful in anyway.